Self-determination day: Rallies staged in AJK

MUZAFFARABAD: Rain failed to stop hundreds of people took out an anti-India rally in Azad Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday to observe Right of Self-Determination Day.

The UN Security Council had passed a resolution on January 5, 1949, recognising basic human rights of Kashmiri people and promising to grant them the right to self-determination to Kashmiris through an independent and transparent plebiscite.

Rallies was taken out by Kashmiri refugees of 1989 settled in Muzaffarabad from Gharipan Chowk to the office of Untied Nations Military Observers Group for India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP).

Despite the rain the protesters shouted pro-freedom and anti-India slogans such as ‘go India, go back’ and ‘we want freedom’.

Speakers appealed to the UN to implement the resolutions on Kashmir.

“The world should shun the policy of double standards on global conflicts,” said protester Uzair Ahmad Ghazali.

“When the UN can conduct plebiscite in Sudan, then why not in Indian Occupied Kashmir where Indian troops have killed more than 100,000 people since 1989. Israel banned the use of pellet guns in Palestine while Indian military establishment is openly using it in Srinagar to blind the innocent Kashmiri youth.”

Nisar Ahmad Khan, the vice chairman of the International Forum for Justice and Human Rights (IFJHR) urged the European Union, human rights bodies and Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) to use their offices to pressurise India for stopping the crimes against humanity in Indian Occupied Kashmir.

He further said that Kashmiris would never compromise on their basic rights and continue their struggle till the final settlement of the dispute.

UN urged to implement resolutions

A former prime minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday urged the new United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres to implement the six decade old resolutions on the Jammu and Kashmir dispute and bring lasting peace to South Asia.

Addressing a seminar in Muzaffarabad on Thursday, Sardar Attique Khan – an ex-premier of AJK and president of the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference (AJKMC) – said that no power on earth could keep Kashmiris permanently subjugated

“India is an aggressor in Kashmir,” Khan said, adding that the UN Security Council has never accepted Indian stance on Kashmir.

“The resolutions on Kashmir dispute had been passed with the mutual understanding of India and Pakistan before the world community to give Kashmiris chance to decide about their future.”__Tribune.com